What does the dramatically greater US health care per
capita expenditure buy? Inspection of these data suggests that it buys affluent
Americans a slightly greater feeling of well being than their British
counterparts. On the contrary, health-wise, it's much tougher to be
poor in America than in Britain. The much larger gap in low income well
being vs. high income well being in America vs. Britain undoubtedly says
something about how each country looks after its poor in terms of
state-supported social services. And certainly no one in America can argue that any social welfare state type program
resembles a
"national religion"!

What differences in American and British worldviews might
explain the above? Certainly a greater % of Britains
than Americans are comfortable with Social Welfare
Statism (worldview theme #49a). And it seems the British are less willing to
tolerate income inequality than Americans. A recent
World Values Surveyasked people what they felt about
income inequality.
The responses could range from 1 (incomes should be made more equal) to 10
(we need larger income differences as incentives). While the mean response value
in the U.S. was the highest (ave score ~6.3) among the
participating countries, the average score in Britain was
significantly lower: (ave score ~5.5) ranking it #8 of the 13 countries
polled. Though it has declined in the last two decades, a still
significant 36% of Brits surveyed
in late 2010 backed policies to redistribute income from rich
to poor.

Worldview differences in religion and morality between the
US and UK are even more telling--starting with Belief
in a Personal God (theme #8b). A 2004
BBC survey found only 9% of Americans not believing in God, compared
to a large 44% of Britains! Another survey documented a striking
difference in conceptions of morality between the two populations.
When asked, in
a Pew Research Center Global Attitudes Project survey in 2007,
"Is it necessary to believe in God to be moral?" 57% of
Americans answered yes, versus only 22% of Brits. Try
connecting these data with the morality of such questions as "Is it
right for hospitals and insurance company executives to deny service to
those clearly in need but lacking health insurance?" It's
tough! Could it be that the land of Adam Smith, the intellectual
father of laissez faire capitalism, has turned its back on Economic
Individualism (worldview theme #19) more so than its onetime colony?
Or perhaps the invisible hand working for the common good in terms of
access to health care is just not operating very well in
America?

As far as the NHS being "the closest thing
Britain has to a national religion" the data make more sense.
Hundreds of years ago--say when the King James version of the Bible was
published 400 years ago in 1611--the Church of England filled that
role. Today,
according to the Church of England, average Sunday church attendance has dipped to approximately
one million, or just 4% of the country's
supposedly still rather large Anglican population. In
contrast to Britain, where less than 20% attend weekly religious services,
according
to 2007 data from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, close to
40% of US residents attend. I suspect those Americans would overwhelming
tell you that theirs is "one nation under God." Skeptical
British among the 64% of
them who were either very or quite
satisfied with their NHS, might reply, "Perhaps so. But
you're still a land of the "haves" and "the have nots"
as far as access to health care is concerned!"